              Copyright
Helen Forder
2004
|
The
National Music of Wales ... continued xxxxxxxxxxxxxxpage 9
John
Thomas (Pencerdd Gwalia). From Y Cymmrodor, 1878 |
| In the eleventh
century, Gryffudd ap Cynan, king of North Wales,
held a Congress for the purpose of reforming the
order of the Welsh bards; and he invited several
of the fraternity from Ireland to assist in
carrying out the contemplated reforms; the most
important of which appears to have been the
separation of the professions of bard and
minstrel - in other words - of poetry and music;
both of which had hitherto been united in one and
the same person. |
 |
| In all
probability, it was considered that both poetry
and music would be greatly benefited by the
separation, each being thought sufficient to
occupy the whole and undivided attention of one
person. |
| The next
was the revision of the rules for the composition
and performance of music. The twenty-four musical
measures were permanently established, as well as
a number of keys, scales, etc.; and it was
decreed that from henceforth all compositions
were to be written in accordance with those
enactments; and, moreover, that none but those
who were conversant with the rules should be
considered thorough musicians, or competent to
undertake the instruction of others. All these
reforms were written down in books, in the Welsh
and Irish languages; as is shown by a manuscript
now in the British Museum, copied in the
fifteenth century from another book dating from
the time when the above reforms were instituted.
In this manuscript will also be found some of the
most ancient pieces of music of the Britons,
supposed to have been handed down to us from the
ancient bards. I have carefully studied the
contents, and find that the whole of the music is
written for the Crwth, in a system of
notation by the letters of the alphabet, with
merely one line to divide bass and treble. |
| Dr. Burney,
after a life-long research into the musical
notations of ancient nations, gives the following
as the result:- |
"It does not
appear from history that the Egyptians,
Phoenicians, Hebrews, or any ancient people
who cultivated the arts, except the Greeks
and Romans, had musical characters; and these
had no other symbols of sound than the
letters of the alphabet, which likewise
served them for arithmetical numbers and
chronological dates."
|
| The system
of notation under consideration resembles that of
Pope Gregory's in the sixth century, and may have
found its way into this country about that
period, when he sent Augustine and a number of
musicians into Britain to reform the abuses which
had crept into the services of the western
churches. |
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